The woman never goes by the same name.
She never stays in the same place too long.
She never ages. She never dies.
But those around her do.
When two grieving strangers meet by chance in Osaka airport they uncover a disturbing connection. Jake’s best friend and Mariko’s twin brother each died, 6,000 miles apart, in brutal and unfathomable circumstances.
Each encountered a mesmerising, dark-haired woman in the days before their deaths. A woman who came looking for Mariko – and then disappeared.
Jake, who has carried his loss and guilt for a decade, finds himself compelled to follow the trail set by Mariko’s revelations. It’s a trail that weaves across continents and centuries, leading back to the many who have died – in strange and terrifying and eerily similar ways – and those they left behind: bewildered, disbelieved, yet resolutely sure of what they saw.
And, at the centre of it all, there is the same beguiling woman. Her name may have changed, but her purpose has never wavered, and as Jake races to discover who, or what she is, she has already made her next choice.
But will knowing her secret be enough to stop her?
Horror is a genre that I always want to read more of, but it’s one that I find to be very hit and miss. I love the idea of it, but so much of what I’ve read just doesn’t land with me or give me that little frisson of excitement that I get from a horror film. Despite this, it’s a genre that I keep coming back to, and I love it when I come across a novel that does work for me. Old Soul is one such novel. It wasn’t on my radar at all, but the cover caught my eye and the blurb and the comparisons to David Mitchell and Margaret Atwood sounded promising. It didn’t disappoint.
I love the structure of the novel, which sees Jake collect the testimonies of those who have lost someone close to them in circumstances that bear more than a passing resemblance. It starts with a chance encounter at Kansai International Airport. Jake and Mariko – strangers at the outset – both miss their flight and decide to drown their mutual sorrows together. As they talk, they discover that Jake’s best friend and Mariko’s brother both died in unusual but similar circumstances. Mariko’s testimony becomes the first, and she’s able to provide a titbit of information that leads him to another similarly affected individual, at last giving Jake some information and ultimately, he hopes, closure.
The pacing of the novel is excellent. The testimonies that Jake collects are varied and fascinating, coming as they do from different parts of the world and told from such a range of perspectives that each one feels fresh despite the obvious similarities between them. At the heart of these testimonies is our unusual antagonist – a darkhaired woman in her thirties. Her name changes in each telling, yet her age and appearance never do, no matter how long ago some of these events occurred. The novel becomes increasingly chilling as we learn more about this woman and what’s driving her.
Alternating with these testimonies are chapters set in the “Badlands” as we see a wannabe influencer heading out into the desert with her photographer – a darkhaired woman in her thirties – to create some content for her forthcoming channel. Aurora Rose, as our influencer hopes to known, is every bit as annoying as you’d expect, and yet I couldn’t help but feel some sympathy for her as I learnt more about the woman accompanying her. Her fate seems inevitable, and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. These chapters add a degree of tension to the novel as we see the woman in action in real time, as it were, as opposed to the more retrospective testimonies.
Old Soul is a chilling tale of cosmic horror that had me hooked from the very first page. I loved the gradual reveal of the woman’s Faustian pact, and I liked the nuance in Barker’s antagonist as we discover more about her and her past. As always, I loved that the “bad guy” was a woman who seems not in the least bit dangerous but who is actually terrifying if you have the misfortune to get to know her. Highly recommended.
Jo's Book Blog 